Somehow, the Jets Take a Turn for the Worse

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Bills cornerback Stephon Gilmore (24) ran in the first quarter after intercepting a pass thrown by Jets quarterback Geno Smith on Sunday. Smith threw three interceptions in the Jets’ 43-23 loss to Buffalo.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The Jets wore all green on Sunday, perhaps believing that they could blend in with the turf at MetLife Stadium — that no one would notice if Geno Smith happened to throw interceptions on three consecutive drives in the first quarter.

Or if Smith’s backup came in and happened to commit three more turnovers. Or if their defense happened to allow five touchdowns. Or if they happened to bungle a kickoff return that began with a player actually camouflaged on the ground in the end zone.

Every week, it gets a little worse for the Jets: a little sadder, a little more absurd and a lot more embarrassing. In their latest foray into the tragicomic, the Jets lost their seventh straight, a 43-23 defeat to the Buffalo Bills that challenged their standard for ineptitude and secured their worst start to a season since 1996.

The Jets had 10 days to prepare for this game, which hardly seemed a certain victory — none are, these days — but at least did not look like a certain loss. Then the ball was kicked, the Jets went three-and-out, the Bills scored, and that was that.

In good times and, more often, bad, Coach Rex Ryan has said that opponents do not look forward to facing the Jets. He may believe it, but how can it be true? Feared teams do not have unstable quarterback situations, or have minus-15 turnover margins, or allow 20 touchdown passes in a span of seven games.

Then there is that whole 1-7 thing.

“We’re not a bad football team,” receiver Eric Decker said. “We just do stupid stuff.”

Stupid stuff has been a franchise forte since 1960, and on Sunday, the Jets did a lot of it. The 10 penalties. The four touchdowns allowed in the red zone. The six turnovers, their most since Week 6 of the 2009 season, a game also against Buffalo, in Ryan’s first year.

There was so much hope back then, with a new coach in town, a promising young quarterback and a ferocious defense. As the Jets stumble through this season, Ryan has less job security than a substitute teacher, and Smith’s recklessness with the ball makes his predecessor, Mark Sanchez, seem like a cardiac surgeon. The team has allowed 228 points, the most in the N.F.L. after Sunday’s games.

“Why we’re not playing better, I don’t know,” Ryan said.

No doubt wondering the same thing is General Manager John Idzik, who will be asked to assess his role in this wretched season on Monday, when he is scheduled to meet with the news media for what the team is calling his normal midyear availability.

Possible topics of discussion: his mismanagement of the cornerback position; his competing interests with those of Ryan, who has been unable to fix all the stupid stuff but has also been handed a team with inferior talent; and his confidence in Smith, who was 2 of 8 passing for 5 yards and a 0.0 passer rating before being replaced by Michael Vick, in the first quarter, for the second time in four games. This benching, unlike the last, at San Diego, may not be temporary.

Ryan said the Jets would evaluate the position later, but as Smith answered questions about a first quarter — about a first 11 minutes, really — that he called “just atrocious,” he seemed like a man who expected to watch next week’s game, at Kansas City, from the sideline.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Smith, who had X-rays on his right shoulder after the game. “I’ve got my work cut out for myself.”

The strong support that Smith forged in the locker room has eroded. No one, when asked, said he would prefer Vick to Smith, or vice versa, but several players acknowledged that Vick, whose interception and two lost fumbles led to 13 Buffalo points, energized the offense, at least in the second quarter. The Jets scored on three of their five first-half drives under Vick, cutting their deficit to 24-17 by halftime. In the second half, they gained all of 107 yards.

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With six turnovers, another blowout loss and a 1-7 record, Jets fans had seen enough on Sunday.CreditBarton Silverman/The New York Times

“Well, we started getting first downs,” Decker said. “That gives a spark anytime.”

After Smith’s third interception, a pass that sailed high of Decker and into the arms of Aaron Williams, what rumbled through the crowd was a sound familiar to generations of dejected Jets fans: the I-can’t-believe-the-quarterback-did-it-again groan.

“When you start that rocky, it’s a ripple effect,” offensive lineman Willie Colon said, “and we feel it throughout the whole team.”

The best play Smith made all afternoon was pushing Williams out of bounds at the 1-yard line, dislodging the ball and preventing a touchdown. As the play was being reviewed — did the ball tumble through the end zone, which would return possession to the Jets? — Percy Harvin, their new acquisition, ambled onto the field from the locker room, where he was being tested for a concussion.

Harvin could have turned around and headed back, away from the carnage. Instead, he arrived just in time to see Kyle Orton flip a 1-yard pass that extended Buffalo’s lead to 14-0.

Facing Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady prepared the Jets for the pummeling administered by Orton, who threw four touchdown passes and set up another score with an 84-yard toss to Sammy Watkins. His fourth scoring throw, to Watkins with 9 minutes 46 seconds left, sent loads of fans scurrying for the exits. Those who stayed were merely rubbernecking.

Presuming that the Jets could duplicate their performance from a narrow loss at New England in their last game — when they controlled the ball for nearly 41 minutes and did not have a turnover — was unrealistic. But this steep a correction?

“I mean, one thing we know is, it can’t get a whole hell of a lot worse,” Ryan said.

Except, of course, that it could. The Jets do play again next week.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D5 of the New York edition with the headline: Somehow, the Jets Take a Turn for the Worse. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe